


Principles of Avoidance

by Elenothar



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Asexuality, Case Fic, Coming Out, Endgame OT3, Multi, warning: Hathaway can be a moody introspective bugger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-12-27 02:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12072219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenothar/pseuds/Elenothar
Summary: It comes up during a case (of course it does) and Lewis, true to form, refuses to let it go (of course he doesn’t).





	Principles of Avoidance

**Author's Note:**

> Here I am, once again finding myself drawn into a fandom after its canon has finished *sigh* This story (or at least, ace!Hathaway) just _really_ wanted to be written.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy my first attempt at Lewis fic - unbetad, since I don't know anybody in the fandom.

 

*

The bells of Oxford ring six just as James passes through the centre of town on his way to the latest call out. The sound is muffled by the noise of the car engine and doesn’t bring its usual peace. For an idle moment he wishes he could stop, step outside into the cold and properly listen – he hasn’t done that nearly often enough lately. Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he waits for a gaggle of students to cross the road on the way to early morning rowing practice, he sighs. Lizzie is on leave, visiting family in Leeds, which means he’s very likely to encounter Lewis as his back-up at the crime scene instead. The usual tangle of emotion at the prospect of working together with Lewis makes itself at home near his heart – pleased warmth and a particular kind of hollowness. There is always a Robbie Lewis shaped hole in James thoughts – it’s just that when Lewis is actually there, in all his beautiful, sturdy dependency, that hole widens to admit all the things that James wants and can’t have. Having made peace with something, alas, does not cease the onslaught of reality. _Until we have shuffled off this mortal coil_.

James snorts at himself. _What dreams may come_ , indeed. Some dose of reality, he ruefully acknowledges, is rather necessary. Maybe he shouldn’t have drunk the two glasses of wine yesterday evening – wine always makes him maudlin.

There is nowhere to park his car near the site so he trudges the last few metres on foot, immaculate shoes sinking into the wet earth surrounding the banks of the Cherwell.

Lewis straightens from his crouch near the body at James’ approach. Today, the customary measuring glance over James’ appearance causes a line of worry to appear between Lewis’ brows. “Why the long face?”

James stares down at the body of a man, maybe around thirty years old, blue-tinged skin a shocking contrast to the puddle of red below his torso. “I have been reliably informed by the ever-precise Doctor Hobson that my face is always long, though I’ll grant that perhaps it is especially so at pre-dawn murder scenes.”

“You know, one of these days Laura is really going to come down on you for never using her given name.”

He shrugs. “Old habits. _Sir_.”

Lewis shakes his head, rueful fondness written in every line of his face. “Get out of here, man.”

“My crime scene, I think not,” James returns, lips twitching. “Where _is_ the good Doctor?”

Lewis jerks his head towards the nearest clump of trees, which is crawling with SOCO. “She already examined the body – somebody found the likely murder weapon and she’s gone to give it a look.” Catching sight of James’ raised eyebrows, he shrugs. “Whoever did this wasn’t a big planner, I don’t think.”

“Crime of passion?” James asks, taking another unhappy look at the somewhat jagged cut in the victim’s belly. It wouldn’t have been a quick death.

“Premeditated enough to have brought a kitchen knife,” Laura announces, waving the bagged item in question as she approaches. “Standard issue IKEA.”

James holds back a sigh. It’s always so much more convenient when the killer uses a rare kind of murder weapon. If they tried to arrest everyone who owns an IKEA chopping knife, hardly anyone would remain at large.

Laura’s assistant hands him a bag with the items found in the victim’s pockets – wallet and phone, some crumpled bits of paper.

“ID?”

Laura nods towards the wallet. “According the driver’s license in there, the victim is one Ian Larson, aged 29. The rest, as usual, I leave up to you gentlemen. Wouldn’t want to put you out of a job.”

“God forbid,” James says dryly, though half of his attention is on the iPhone in the bag. It looks new, or at least the brightly coloured Star Wars casing does. “I’m sure Lizzie would be delighted to return from Leeds only to find that she’s been made redundant by the pathology department.”

“When’s she coming back?” Laura asks, as all three of them start moving towards the cars. Behind them, the body of Ian Larson is being moved onto a stretcher with the ruthless efficiency of those who see more dead bodies in a week than most people do in a lifetime.

“Monday,” James replies. “Even Robert and I should manage to survive on our own till then.”

Laura’s smile dimples her cheeks and makes her look utterly lovely. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Oi!” Lewis finally puts in, though his grin belies any real offence.

When he reaches down to give Laura a smack on the lips, James politely averts his gaze. They probably wouldn’t mind him watching them kiss, it’s a fairly normal thing to do in public after all, but he always feels even more like an intruder when he does catch them being so demonstrative with each other. Never mind that kissing in general is just a bit of an awkward activity from where he’s standing.

“Try to be on time for dinner – I’ve got late shifts the rest of the week,” Laura tells Lewis as James reaches his own car and opens the door. As he slides into the driver’s seat he hears Lewis murmur his assent, but before he can start the engine, the passenger door opens.

“Back to the nick, yeah?”

James casts a sideways glance at Lewis, who always looks right at home in James’ car.

“If you don’t mind a stop for coffee, yes.”

Lewis’s seatbelt clicks into place. “You were me Sergeant for how many years again? I’m well aware of your caffeine addiction.”

Well then.

*

Larson’s most frequently texted number is that of an associate lecturer in linguistics, Lena Sangler. In lieu of any more pressing leads, James decides to pay her a visit, if only to get a more thorough understanding of Larson as a person. Lewis, predictably, invites himself along. Not that James actually minds – it smacks of old times, the two of them ambling towards one of the many colleges Oxford calls its own. Without even thinking about it James shortens his stride to match Lewis’s.

The porter directs them to a flight of stairs tucked away in the corner of the quad. James knocks and pushes open the door at the call from within, letting Lewis precede him into the room and show his warrant card.

“Doctor Sangler, we’re from Oxford City Police. I’m Inspector Lewis and this is Inspector Hathaway. May we have a word about Ian Larson?”

Sangler looks tired and wan, but nods readily enough. “Of course. Anything I can do to help you find out what happened...” She shakes her head. “We all hate not knowing, don’t we?”

“I daresay,” Lewis agrees, smiling his ‘I’m just a harmless Geordie in a town full of toffs’ smile. James doesn’t think it’s actually needed this time – Sangler doesn’t look like she’s about to go on a rant about police interference or turn her nose up at Lewis’s accent. As a linguist, James doubts she would. They’re all against prescriptivism these days, is his understanding.

“Were you and Larson friends?” James asks, taking over at the barely perceptible tilt of Lewis’s head in his direction. They used to do this all the time, so in tune that they seamlessly switched tracks in interviews without having to say a single word. These days Lewis, in his role as consultant, bounces around all the detective teams and James only occasionally gets him all to himself. He gets along well with Lizzie now and they work well together, but it’s not quite the same. The pang of nostalgia is hardly unexpected, but can’t be indulged right now.

Sangler nods. “Yes, we were… we met when we both undergraduates at St. Andrews. We’ve always stayed in touch since then, and when we both ended up in Oxford...” Her throat works silently. “I see him pretty much every week and now he’s just _gone_.”

James looks at her drawn face, the grief in the bowed line of her shoulders and thinks, _it doesn’t ever get easier_. “We’re very sorry for your loss, Doctor.”

Lewis nods along with him, his own face grim and lined. “Is there more you can tell us about Ian? Anything might help us find who killed him.”

“Like what?” Sangler looks down at the papers on her desk, hands blindly travelling over books and pens. “There’s so much I could say about him, how could I do him justice?”

 _We’re not journalists_ , James doesn’t say because it doesn’t matter. They need facts about Ian’s life, flattering and non-flattering, but to the bereaved such emotional distance is often impossible.

“What was Ian doing at the moment? Who were the other important people in his life? Did he have a partner?”

“He was working at Lloyd Banks, a branch here in Oxford. I think he saw his parents occasionally, but they live up north.” Her fingers have started shredding a piece of paper. She doesn’t seem to notice. “As for partners… we didn’t really talk about that kind of thing.”

Lewis leaned forward ever so slightly. “So you weren’t… involved with him?”

That seems to jolt her out of her cloud of misery. She snorts. “Unlikely.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“I’m asexual, Inspector. Not in the habit of getting ‘involved’, as you put it, with anyone and certainly not a man who would make a rabbit look chaste.” She flinches in the wake of her own words. “I’m sorry, that probably sounded really callous, didn’t it? I can’t believe he’s dead.”

As Lewis takes over comforting her, murmuring about shock and normal reactions, James’ eyes flicker to her hand, unsurprised to find a black ring on her middle finger. He had noticed it before, but hadn’t made the connection. When he looks up again, she’s blinking at him in surprise and Lewis’ gaze flicks between them, razor-sharp. Bugger.

Lewis is wise to James’s reaction – or at least that there’s something in this that James has reacted to – and James has only been avoiding this conversation for literal years.

The silence thickens for a moment, only to be interrupted by Sangler. She’s looking at James now, as if having found what might be a kindred soul in this has given her courage.

“There is one thing… As I said, we didn’t really talk about his, um, conquests, but this one...” She bites her lip. “Have you spoken to Sophie?”

James exchanges a look with Lewis, hope warring with natural pessimism.

“Who’s Sophie?”

*

Sophie, it turns out, is the woman their victim has been seeing. The married woman. Which leads them directly to the jilted husband, who’s in the process of burying his blood-stained shirt in the garden when they find him.

Case open and shut.

Normally James would take more satisfaction from solving a murder so quickly and with such little fuss, but Lewis has been eyeing him consideringly for the last few hours and James has lost the distracting element of the murder case. Whatever else Lewis may be, he’s also a bit of a nosy bugger.

The first evening, James is saved by Laura and her edict that Lewis ‘better be home by dinner or else’, while James blithely keeps working through the paperwork. That usually works quite well as a shield.

The second evening his generally dubious luck runs out.

“Come back to mine for dinner and a pint?” Lewis says, looming over James’ desk like a particularly determined fluffy animal. “Or we could go to that echoing flat of yours if you’d rather.”

James makes a face at the description. Lewis is of the opinion that James’ flat is too impersonal, and it’s true that it doesn’t have the homely feel of Lewis and Laura’s place, but it’s still his. He had liked the feeling of age the rooms give when he had first viewed the flat, and he’s tall enough to appreciate high ceilings that don’t make him feel hemmed in. Or maybe that has nothing to do with his size.

“Are you going to be cooking?” he asks suspiciously, because the last thing he needs his a ‘voyage of discovery’ meal on top of his already strained nerves.

Lewis rolls his eyes, though he has been nothing but good-natured about Laura and James’ combined ribbing over his (lack of) cooking skills. “I thought we could recreate that risotto you coached me through the other week.”

James hums consideringly. The risotto _had_ been quite good – even on the next day when Lewis brought him a tupperware of it for lunch (having put enough effort into its making to be entitled to some of the rewards, or so Lewis claimed, while James suspected that the other man was trying to feed him up a little) – and they’re going to have this conversation anyway, even if he begs off now. And really, what is he afraid of? Lewis knows more about James Hathaway, the man, failed priest, policeman, than any other person alive, and he has yet to judge him harshly. In truth, James could probably have told him ages ago – but then, he’s not in the habit of discussing his private affairs without impetus, and there certainly hadn’t been any convenient time for him to go ‘Oh, sir, remember that time we almost discussed me being gay? Actually...’

So he says, “Seven o’clock?” and smirks at Lewis’s surprised expression. Clearly he had expected James to put up more of a fight. Maybe James really has grown where this kind of thing is concerned.

*

On the drive over, doubts and relief chase each other around his brain. He has never particularly liked hiding parts of himself from Lewis, though some of that had been unavoidable simply because James is, well, _himself_. Still, he suspects that coming out should be slightly less harrowing at his age, though there are certainly enough films and TV shows about it that even he is aware that other people have the same fears as his irrational heart.

It really doesn’t help that he hasn’t been secure in his sexuality for long; all the mental sweat and agony that it had taken to get even this far.

What was it Doctor Canter had said, on that long ago case? _But then I realised that passion is only something that happens to other people. In life, in books, in paintings._

Oh, he’s hardly the same as Canter, pining after the same woman for all his life body and soul, but the sentiment… the sentiment James understands all too well, if for different reasons. He wonders if _Lewis_ will understand.

At least Lewis wouldn’t ask whether his lack of desire for sex has anything to do with the carefully skirted-around topic of James’ childhood in Crevecoeur. He might think it, he’s a detective after all, and trying to connect even the dots that aren’t on the same plane is his job – but he won’t ask. James is grateful for that. If there’s one conversation he never wants to have ever again, that one would rank far up the top.

Lewis is already opening the door when James steps out of the car, waving him in with a smile on his face.

“I set up the kitchen already,” he says cheerfully as he leads them to the kitchen. “Even got some mushrooms and leafy things, like.”

James grins at him. “I’m duly impressed.”

A wide pan is already warming on the stove, and chopping boards are laid out on the counter. James casts a glance at the recipe Lewis has printed out and begins chopping garlic, while the other man pulls out the risotto rice.

They chat a little bit about things to be done in the office tomorrow, but James is pretty certain he isn’t imagining the undercurrent of expectation. Finally Lewis says, casual as you like, “So, how do you recognise being asexual then? Liking cake and dragons?”

It takes James a moment to understand the reference to that long-ago conversation and his lips twitch into an involuntary smile. “You did your research.”

“Had to, didn’t I? Not like you’re going to tell me.”

“I might.”

Lewis’ disbelieving look says more than a hundred words. He’s good at that, is his old governor. Speech is silvern, silence is golden, or so the Germans say.

Speech, James is finding right now, despite his talents at ‘yammering on’ (as Lewis likes to call it) when the fancy strikes him, is also occasionally _difficult_.

“It’s not that I was trying to...”

Lewis is waiting him out, patiently, no recrimination anywhere to be found in his expression – just gentle encouragement.

Even that encouragement doesn’t help with the fact that James doesn’t quite know how to say that it had taken him a long time to figure out, and an even longer time to accept as anything other than yet another deficiency. After all, James has never been very good at self-acceptance, even for all the things that he wouldn’t judge anyone else for. He’d tried it a few times, sex. First believing that he would react like anyone else, as society expected him to. But kisses had never felt like fireworks, and the act itself, in his opinion, could most easily be summarised by the phrases _moderately_ _uncomfortable_ and _mildly boring_. Gender, it had turned out in the hungover light of day after a night of drunken fumbling, made no difference whatsoever. Then he’d gone to do research because that’s what James does when he doesn’t understand something. The results had been both illuminating and frustrating. When he still thought that it was only him that suffered an acute case of lack of interest in sex, it had been something he could do something about – change himself, or barring that, bear the knowledge that it’s his own damn fault. Now that he knows there are others like him, it has become an unchangeable fact.

And then there’s the even thornier topic of romantic love.

He has been silent too long, even for Lewis’s patience. Encouragement has turned to simmering worry, as if he’s only just restraining himself from asking which lala land James has disappeared off into this time.

“Penny for them?”

James’ eyebrows twitch upwards. “Maybe I should start charging more competitive rates.”

“And here I believed you think so much that you might as well give some of them away for free.” Lewis takes another draught from his bottle, eyes twinkling, and James is at the mercy of the smile he can’t help but return.

“You’re the one who offered to pay for them in the first place.”

“Should’ve known better,” Lewis sighs, shaking his head in mock-remorse. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you not answering the question.”

That hadn’t actually been James’ conscious intention. It’s second-nature to banter with Lewis and – he acknowledges in his more brutally honest moments – one of his favourite parts of any day he’s lucky enough to enjoy the other man’s company.

“I haven’t known for very long,” he says abruptly. Rips off the bandaid to show the exposed flesh beneath. “It’s not a concept that gets advertised much, you see? Besides, as you know, I used to be all kinds of tangled up over the question of sexuality.”

Lewis nods silently. Neither of them likes to revisit the Phoenix case, for all that it ended up making their bond stronger.

James’ hands worry at counter edge, scrubbing over a stain that’s probably been there for years. “I’m used to hiding,” he says, “and it didn’t seem… relevant, really, once I had figured it out. To us. We have always functioned without these kinds of labels.”

Lewis’s eyes soften. “That we have. I wouldn’t have pushed now, but...”

“You do occasionally think you know what’s best for me,” James completes dryly.

Lewis shrugs, finally turning back to the neglected mushrooms. “It seemed important that you know you are accepted as you are.”

James’ breath catches. For all that Lewis claims he doesn’t have James’ way with words, he sometimes comes out with statements like this, deceptively simple, yet hiding a wealth of insight and caring underneath. It would take anyone’s breath away, he thinks, staring down at the garlic clove he’s supposed to be mincing with unseeing eyes.

It would be easy to pretend that Lewis doesn’t know the enormity of his words, the effect they have on James, but he does. He always does.

When a warm hand lands on his shoulder, solid and strong, James doesn’t stop himself from leaning into the offered comfort.

*

Things go back to normal after that. Or at least the piles of post-case paperwork remain normal, as does James’ lack of motivation to deal with it. He blames that one on Lewis – he never used to mind the paperwork drudgery, but over the years Lewis’s grumbles about ‘wasting police time’ seem to have sunk into his brain.

“I’ve just about had it with all these jealousy-related murders,” Lewis says suddenly and James looks up from the report he’s typing.

Lewis is staring down at the photos of the crime scene still littered across their desk, mouth in a grim line. He’s not a man, James thinks, who has had to grapple much with jealousy in his life. By all accounts his relationship with his wife was an exceptionally good one – no doubt with its little hiccups, but surely nothing that would’ve driven even the most hair-trigger temper close to murder. Not that Lewis ever would. He’s not the type of man to lose his head to violence at all, not in all the years James has known him. At most a sharp word, but even that far and few between, usually with good cause.

James himself is different of course (he usually is). Jealousy is a beast he has faced head on too many times to count. Sometimes he thinks he’s getting better, but then he realises that it’s simply turned into hurt instead. At least he, too, has never contemplated murder. Or anything close to it. If there is anyone he could be peacefully jealous of it’s Laura, whom he very much likes in her own right. Laura is as warm as Lewis, but with a sharp tongue that James appreciates. Maybe others would think it weird that he is close friends with the person who also incites his jealousy, but then James has never done things the ordinary way.

He starts to tidy up the photos, leaving the report unfinished on his desktop for the moment. They don’t have to see these anymore – the murderer is found, the case closed and nearly ready for handover to CPS. When he looks up after stuffing the lot into an envelope for evidence, Lewis is watching him, a faint smile on his face.

“Laura told me to invite you over for dinner on the weekend, when she’s off night shifts.”

James straightens from his slouch, brow furrowing. It’s nothing new, him spending evenings at their house. They do it once a week at least, trading off cooking between them. Yet Lewis sounds… cagey, almost, as if this isn’t the kind of casual invitation that has become the norm. Besides, they usually do Friday evenings.

“Is there a special occasion?” he asks mildly, puzzled to find Lewis’s smile widening.

“Maybe, bonny lad. Maybe,” Lewis replies, which doesn’t clear up anything at all.

James squints at him suspiciously for another minute before shrugging to himself. Lewis doesn’t look like he’s going to elaborate, and getting anything out of him when he doesn’t want to talk is like pulling teeth. Including the trouble of getting the man to the dentist’s in the first place.

“Should I - ”

“We’ll cook. Just bring yourself, eh?”

If Lewis is trying to deliberately confuse him, he's doing a great job of it. James mentally throws up his hands in defeat and turns back to his computer and the neglected report.

“I think I can manage that.”

He can hear the warm smile in Lewis’s voice when he says, “Good,” before going back to his own paperwork.

Though they’re both nominally busy, James can feel Lewis’s gaze on him for the rest of the day, and pretends he doesn’t find that quite as baffling and thrilling as he does. Cautious excitement rears its head. Whatever Sunday may bring – and Lewis’s behaviour is certainly igniting some long-buried hopes – it’s certainly going to be interesting.

(Three days later, lying warm and content and safely held between the two people he cares about most in the world, who haven't demanded or even asked for _anything_ he doesn't want to give, he can only think that _interesting_ doesn’t even begin to cover it.)

 

 


End file.
